Travel distraction

My company's current and so far only contract has a major deadline in January. Even though I know better (in software development, you only get busier post-release) I have been thinking about how it would be nice to do some traveling.

Rachel and I have talked about living abroad for a year or so in the relatively near future. There are lots of places we would like to live but probably the top three are Ireland, Tahiti, and the Philippines. The main line of reasoning here is

1. If you're going to go abroad for a year it's a bit silly to live somewhere that's not very different from the USA, which tends to rule out Australia which is after all rather like Canada, only warmer
2. On the other hand it does suck to not be able to understand anyone. We should be fine with English in Ireland and the Philippines; we think we could probably dust the rust off our French quickly enough to make Tahiti viable. (Thanks to my father's influence, my French was once good enough to be able to watch the news and occasionally trick a Frenchman into thinking I was Quebequois. Although I never managed the opposite; my accent was not French enough.)
3. You could apply (1) and (2) to France itself as well, but neither of us is really excited about that idea for various reasons
4. Ditto Northern Africa, although it's quite possible I should look at the options there more closely
   

Of course, before moving somewhere for a year it only makes sense to make some shorter trips first to see if we actually like it first. That is what I have in mind for January.

Of those, I'd prefer not to make our first visit to Ireland be in the winter. From what I have read, the weather there is similar to Rachel's native Washington in the sense that it rains a lot most of the year; the main difference is that Ireland is colder.

My dad wants to come out and say hi if we go to Tahiti; since he's a college teacher, that means waiting for summer makes sense for Tahiti too. (And if you are thinking "sharing a vacation with your parents doesn't sound like much fun," you clearly do not have kids yet. Free baby sitting. Plus my parents think Rachel walks on water which doesn't hurt either.)

So, that is the long explanation for why Rachel often catches me reading about the Philippines online. At first glance there's a lot of information available about living just about anywhere but if you look closer most of it is geared towards either singles or retired couples. Or retired singles. Younger couples with kids... not so much.